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There are infinite learning opportunities available when it comes to using Jira to help you make the most of the tool. From Jira tutorials to Udemy courses to an Atlassian certification, you can continue to hone your skills and learn from others.

There’s always more to discover. Brush up on skills, advance your career, and gain certificates that can land you your dream job. Continued learning can make you an indispensable MASTER of all things Jira within your organization and around the world.

Read our list of recommended Jira tutorials, training, and certifications that will start you on the path to Jira mastery.

Why agile teams choose Jira

Jira is an agile project management tool developed by Atlassian. It began as a software development application for devops teams but has evolved to help modern workplaces practicing agile methodologies augment their process.

The software is widely used for bug tracking, issue tracking, and addressing performance improvements based on real-time data. And the online functionality reduces the physical dependencies of managing a project as a team — something that grows more important to businesses every year.

Fun fact: The name Jira is the truncation of Gojira, the Japanese name for Godzilla. Atlassian recommends yelling it loudly as if you were charging into battle!

Jira is widely used by nearly every development team because it takes a customer-first approach to designing products. Jira allows for extensive customization to help teams meet the needs of their customers.

How to choose the Jira learning that's best for you

Follow these tips when selecting how to receive further Jira training and education:

• If you are pursuing training to advance your career, you may want proof of course completion, either from an Atlassian University training course or a Udemy course, to provide potential employers.
• If you are interested in becoming an Atlassian Certified Professional, you’ll need certification through Atlassian University.
• If cost is a barrier, begin with the free tutorials available from Atlassian University.

Jira tutorials, training, and certifications from Atlassian

Our list will begin with learning opportunities from Atlassian University (since they know Jira best), and then we’ll expand to tutorials, training, and courses from other online sources below.

Atlassian University

Atlassian offers several free Jira tutorials for both beginners and pros, so you can gain confidence with product skills that cover exactly what you need to get started and beyond. The Jira tutorials are clearly labeled with a timestamp to help you plan your schedule.

Each short Jira tutorial is grouped into a series based on a range of topics, beginning with the very basic to the more specific, including:

• Getting started with boards in Jira Software
• Jira Essentials with Agile Mindset
• Getting More from Jira Workflows
• Automating Jira

Some tutorial series are short enough to complete on a lunch break, whereas others will take a few hours. So instead of doomscrolling while you eat your sandwich, pull up a quick tutorial to advance your skills! 🥪

If you hope to earn a certification, but you’re not entirely sure which specific training courses will get you there, Atlassian has role-based learning paths to guide you on your way.

Atlassian University — Jira certifications

To finally and officially cement yourself as a Jira Jedi Master, you can become an Atlassian Certified Professional and the go-to expert for all things Jira. Plus, all Atlassian certifications are globally recognized, so wherever you find yourself, Atlassian will be with you.

A number of different certifications are available depending on your chosen skillset. To achieve a certification, you’ll need to take the courses available through the above training link, gain real-world experience, and take an exam.

Other Jira tutorials, training, and courses

While Atlassian University is filled with learning opportunities, plenty of other resources will help you grow from beginner to expert and from expert to master.

Top Udemy Jira courses

Udemy Jira courses offer a wide variety of topics at a range of prices for those just starting out with Jira and old pros. Students can access broader topics like agile and project management as well as Professional Scrum Master (PSM) courses to prepare you for your certification.

Courses come with a rating based on the experience of past students. And considering that over 200,000 students are learning Jira on Udemy, you’ll be able to see which courses are well-reviewed to help you decide.

From beginner crash courses to more advanced or niche topics, there’s something for everyone. They also offer free “bite-sized” Jira lessons with videos 3 to 11 minutes long, so you can fit them into any busy schedule. Plus, all courses come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Expium’s Atlassian courses

Expium offers workshop-based Jira training for enterprise Atlassian customers. The courses aim to equip students to competently configure Jira with a range of workshops covering beginner basics to more specific topics.

The hands-on learning is available for public, private, or online classes. Expium is a Platinum Solution Partner, which means, according to Atlassian, they meet the highest training criteria and have a proven practice that can scale from small to large customers.

Guru 99 Jira tutorial: How to use Jira software for beginners

Guru 99’s free online resource is for beginners as well as those who need to brush up on the basics. It provides a step-by-step guide for using the Jira dashboard.

The resource outlines detailed use cases with annotated screenshots from the Jira tool. The detailed imagery shows the basics of creating issues and managing issue attributes as well as more specific uses, like how to set up workflows, clone issues, and create custom fields.

Guru 99’s Jira tutorial includes:

• Jira issues and issue types, such as new features, sub-tasks, bugs, etc.
• Jira issue attributes, such as in progress, open, closed, resolved, etc.
• Jira components
• How to create issues in Jira
• How to create sub-tasks, workflows, plugins, epics, and clones
• Security schemes and permission schemes
• Jira reporting and burndown charts
• How to generate a pie chart of priorities

Now it’s time to get out there and learn! Successful people know that learning never stops.

Bonus resource: Continue learning on the Easy Agile blog

And hey, we’ve got extensive learning resources on our Easy Agile blog, too! From understanding the difference between Kanban and Scrum, using epics to maximize performance, and knowing best practices for Jira workflows; you're in the right place.

Easy Agile is dedicated to helping teams work better with agile. Our apps for Jira are designed to keep the customer top of mind through every step of the product development process. They’re simple, collaborative, and made by a development team that lives and breathes Jira.

Contact our team to learn more or request a demo tutorial to see our plugins in action.

For a lot of people, 2020 isn’t quite going as expected.

Maybe you’ve had a conference or two cancelled (like the Atlassian summit 😭). Perhaps your big team planning event is on the backburner. Or maybe your entire workforce has been told to work from home until further notice.

Amazon has stopped all non-essential travel and a number of big tech companies have encouraged employees to work from home, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, and HP (in some or all regions).

You think you’re disruptive? Well, clearly you haven’t met COVID-19!

The new pandemic has shaken things up. Record numbers of organizations are looking for ways to quickly adapt and transition their teams to working remote. It’s a huge challenge when you consider that agile is typically designed for face-to-face interaction - especially critical events like quarterly PI Planning.

We’ve put together some thoughts to help you quickly transition your team to distributed agile, based on our own experiences and working with big organizations who have been working with remote team members for awhile now. First thing’s first...

1. Don’t panic (about distributed agile)

We’re not qualified to tell you if you should panic about the pandemic (seriously though… you don’t need that much toilet paper). But we are qualified to tell you that a remote workforce isn’t as scary as it sounds. You’re going to be just fine.

Organizations like yours have been doing their thing with a distributed agile team for years now. One of our customers has a large distributed team and only does remote PI Planning. It's possible to pull it off.

2. Lead people on how to work from home

Some of the people on your team probably haven’t worked from home before. At least, not for an extended period. So, offer guidance on what’s expected and how they can make the most from working at home.

You know... like business up top, sweatpants on the bottom, and no one on the conference call will be any wiser.

But seriously, it’s a good idea to share guidance like:

• What equipment they’ll need
• A list of software and apps to download (with licensing info)
• Where to find information and access files (a single source of truth is best at all times, but especially when things are already a bit overwhelming)
• How to communicate virtually
• Ideal environments for focus and productivity
• How to block out noise and distractions
• Expected work hours
• How to switch off and take breaks

But a little guidance will go a long way in helping everyone feel more “at home” with the new work situation.

3. Encourage information sharing

You might already have a distributed agile team who are experienced with working remote. So, encourage the experienced remote workers to champion the practice and lead others.

Create a Slack channel or other environment dedicated to discussions about working from home, so that people can share tips and experiences, and ask questions. At Easy Agile, we've created a #remote channel to share our setups.

4. Get the right tools

If your team is working remote for the first time, they might not have all the bits and pieces they need at home to do their job, attend meetings, or show up properly to a remote PI Planning event.

Depending on their role, they may need:

• Computer - A desktop and monitor setup or a laptop with sufficient processing power for everyday tasks
• Meeting equipment - Webcam, headphones, and working mic
• Your preferred communication apps - Slack, Zoom, Google hangouts, Skype, or Microsoft Teams
• Security measures - Password managers, VPNs, and antivirus software
• Your project management tool - Jira, Trello, Asana, or Smartsheet
• Easy Agile Programs for PI Planning in Jira

5. Look at this as a pilot

More people want to work from home and it makes a lot of sense for businesses to encourage this new way of working. It can save a lot of money (one estimate suggests $10,000 per person per year) when teams stay at home. And you can save hundreds of thousands per PI Planning session when you don’t have to pay for flights, accommodation, and event space for a team of up to 100.

The remote work trend isn’t going away - even after the pandemic dies down. So, look at this as an opportunity to try distributed agile if you haven’t already. You could find it’s a better, more cost-effective way for you to get stuff done and give your employees what they want.

6.Trust your people

Nobody likes to feel watched while they’re working 👀 But especially not while they’re working from home. At home, your employees will probably:

• Face more distractions (like kids!)
• Step away to put a load of washing on
• Grab a coffee (and probably a few other things 😋🍛🍫🧁) from the kitchen

In between all of that, you need to trust that they’ll get their job done, do their best, and be productive - even if it happens outside of regular business hours.

Fortunately, if you’re agile, you likely have built a culture of trust already. So, keep up with regular communication, virtual standups, and transparency. This should be enough to monitor progress and keep your people accountable without micromanaging

7. Stay social

Even if you can’t meet face-to-face, create opportunities for your teams to come together virtually, socialise, and chat. Set up a non-work Slack channel, do regular video calls, and talk about more than just work. People, relationships, and connectedness matter even more when you can’t be in the same room together.

8. Get better at risk management

When all of this blows over (and it will), you’ll come out a much stronger organization than before. If a single team member, a whole team, or your entire organization need to work remote in the future, you’ll be able to easily switch gears with minimal disruption.

Use this opportunity to uncover risks you might not have considered previously. Ask questions like:

• What if half of us get sick and can’t work for a few weeks?
• What backup options are in place for our internet connection, files, and communications?
• What if our building is suddenly inaccessible?
• Become more aware of potential risks to your company so you can be better prepared in the future.

9. Look on the bright side

While a pandemic isn’t an ideal scenario, it’s okay to look for the positives, like:

• Your teams may find they love working from home
• Some distributed agile teams will find they’re actually more productive
• You'll get greater work/life balance
• No commutes
• More quality time with family
• Reduced emissions from cars and planes
• Quieter roads with fewer traffic jams and accidents

And maybe… just maybe… some of these changes will stick around for the better 🤞